Confessions of a Starving Artist

How Sweet It Is

Ladies, ladies, ladies.  I know that you’ve had a few days off, and last weekends crazy match-ups and up-sets coupled with the fact that St. Patrick’s Day was a frickin’ blow out must have really laid you all down with a massive hangover of fun and excitement.  Honestly, I have little to no memory of last Friday after about six o’clock.  I do know that I walked nearly three and a half miles home from the bar in the rain because I didn’t want to wait for a cab, and somehow I decided that getting mugged in the rain was a low probability.  I do know that I am enjoying a pint of left-over Guiness right now.  And I do know that tomorrow, the NCAA tournament will start up in full force again.

That’s right, it’s the Sweet Sixteen, and before we look at who got here lets talk about what happened.  My bracket probably looks a lot like your bracket at this point in the tourney, which looks a lot like the Iraqi Thearter of Operations.  That is, unless, you are my barber, Mr. Riley, who has only missed five games so far.  I have had to eat a lot of crow about the whole George Mason thing cause that old SOB has been singing that team’s praises since December.  Sometimes you should just listen to old people, but that would include Dick Cheney, so I don’t really regret my picks.  However, Mr. Riley did not have Bradley knocking out both Kansas and Pitt.  I believe to paraphrase his comments to me today as I sat in his chair, “Only two &%#@ers picked Bradley to get to the Sweet Sixteen.  You’re either a !%$^&* liar who filled out his bracket on Monday… or you went to Bradley.”  I have to say, I agree.  Easily the biggest shocker of the Tournament thus far.  Like two fingers big.

Other disappointments:  Syracuse.  Thank you Steve McNamara for being all the hype that everyone said you were.  I hope you are never considered for the NBA Draft and that your floated liberal arts degree lands you a desk job at some Initec cubical.  Enough said.  Also, I would like to thank Kansas and Pitt in the same sentence (because they both got fucked so fast their wasn’t even time for a period in between) for sucking as much as they did to lose to a team that has been out of the Sweet Sixteen longer than any other team in the NCAA Div I series of schools.  What about Michigan State?  What about what-the-fuck?  Weren’t all five of your starters in the Final Four last year or something close to that?  Nice use of that experience.  Finally Iowa, North Carolina, and Illinois all had great seasons… for me to poop on.  Nice run - you all lost to men in dresses.  Go back to the frat with that under your belt.

Some teams that were not expected to do much did have good showings, though they ended up in losses.  Most notably Xaiver University in the first round against Gonzaga.  For a minute there I thought that I was going to have to make good on my deal that if they won I would shit in my own hands, which I would have been more than happy to do had they pulled it out of their own asses first.  Tip of the hat to a nice first round wins to Montana, Wis-Milwaukee, and Alabama.  All impressive, and yes, I had most of you down making those upsets.  Thanks for the points boys, and thanks for going out in the next round as well.  Nicely done.  Texas A&M can go to Hell for screwing up my bracket with a win over the Orangemen, but that aside, you did play a solid game against LSU.  You would have redeemed yourself had you had you won that game and fucked everyone else’s brackets up as equally as you did mine, but since you didn’t you’re still just a lame ass technical school in Texas with a bunch of ROTC cadets who can’t build a wood pile.  Lastly, what about Winthrop?  They should have beaten The Vols.  Anyone who saw that last minute fade-away three pointer with a hand-in-the-face knows that.  I honestly feel sorry for the kid who shot it, though; if your going to sell your soul to the Devil you should at least ask if he can throw the second round game in as well, you know?

But really, screw the losers, let’s talk about who’s left.  Duke v. LSU; everyone has Duke.  I have LSU.  Two reasons.  One, “Baby” Davis in the low post is too big a pig for Duke to handle.  And second, I hate Duke.  Moving on, I got Texas rolling up West Virginia who is a surprise bid to get this far.  Now I know that The Mountaineers had a close one with The Longhorns earlier this year, but this ain’t earlier this year.  West Virginia goes home in the Sweet Sixteen leaving Texas to match up with LSU (maybe Duke, I can’t rule either one out) and ultimately, Texas beating whoever steps up to the plate like USA beating Canada in anything… except baseball… or hockey… okay, bad analogy.

Bradley’s run ends here.  Memphis spends that game like Paris Hilton at a garden party - looking great and reigning in all the money shots on camera when the sun goes down.  The ‘Zags and UCLA are going to be a Bloods and Crypts level shootout.  Xavier tried guarding the team and Morrison ran all over them, then Indiana tied to guard just Morrison and the team ran over them.  However; I still like UCLA to be able to out move The Bulldog’s big man and kill them on the perimeter.  Look for The Bruins in the Final Four over a Memphis squad who should be grinning like a dog shitting razor blades that they made it this far.

UConn.  Okay, timeout, who’s bracket (besides Mr. Riley) even looks remotely sane at this point?  George Mason should beat Wichita State, but really who cares.  Either one of them or Washington doesn’t have wing or a prayer of landing on The Huskies.  This bracket became an even bigger joke than I had anticipated.   Again, moving on.

I saved the best for last.  These are some match-ups.  Villanova v. Boston College.  Just like I called it.  I stand by my pick, BC has this one.  It’s going to be close all game, it has to be.  These teams are just toe-to-toe.  I’m not even going to speculate; just watch the sparks fly on this one folks.  As for Florida and Georgetown… well… Florida has been playing dominating basketball, but then again, so has Georgetown.  I got The Gators pressing on, but there is a potential for upset here too.  Again, keep your eye on the ticker.  Either way, I still like Boston College to move on over Florida and UConn to meet up with a hungry Texas in the Finals.  And I’m sticking with it; when the dust settles, you’re going to see The Eagles proving that the conference change was not just about football.  And the North can still kick the South’s ass.

But hey, I could be wrong.  You got something to say to me; say it now.  I’d love to talk smack to all you all when I’m right. 

Rebels, Guerillas, and Terrorists; Oh My!

“The population is the center of gravity in an insurgent war.  Victory depends on the majority of the population at least passively resisting the insurgents, and a significant minority actively resisting.”  - Mao Tse Tung

This famous dead-guy quote was the thought of the day in this our first block of instruction back in traditional classes for the Captain’s Career Course.  Our course re-structure is over, and we began learning anew our course material… ironically, it was the same material we just spent the last three weeks putting together.  Doesn’t seem like a good use of our time to me either.  The focus of today was Information Operations, which is a new realm in the world of warfare.  Most of the terms that are used in this area aren’t even considered ‘doctrine’ yet due to the fact that it’s all so new that doctrine hasn’t had a chance to be published.  But I digress…

The question was raised about the population of Iraq, (in relation to the above quote) and our bumbling instructor who was ‘over there’ for a red hot minute during this whole thing’s initial kick off (in the rear ops firing missiles from Kuwait… and he still fucked that up from all reports) began to tell us that he thought slowly but surely we were winning the local population over.  However, he then says, we don’t seem to be having the effect that Mao says we should.  Why is this?

A number of short responses were snapped off, most of which were the general ‘American’ rhetoric (the insurgents have the population bullied, our fighting scares them, they are lazy, etc).  But then it hit me.  I had a bit of a realization, one I didn’t even know I was having until I was saying it.  And as I was saying it, I thought that I would be met by massive levels of criticism, but all I received was quiet in the room and a subtle “whoa… but you’re right…” from Roadblock who was sitting beside me.  My response was this:  Sir, given the current scenario, the insurgents have no choice but to win.

Let me explain as best I can.  First, go back to Mao’s quote.  By “passively resisting” he means, for example, that if insurgents came through a general area, the locals may aid them out of fear/respect/bi-partisan nature, but then if the Americans came through they would say, yeah, they went that way and this.  The Iraqi locals do not do act in this manner.  Further, by“active resisting”, Mao means that there would then be locals who would openly stand up to the insurgents and fight them.  The only place in Iraq were you find this sort of behavior is in areas controlled by the Kurds, in which case finding headless bodies is almost common place; an insurgent Iraqi just wandered into the wrong neighborhood.  The big question is then, Why?  Why does the population not side with us after all we have done for them?

Because we are not a side, that’s why.  We have made it quiet clear that we are not an occupying force, thus if we are leaving, helping us is like kissing up to the lame duck.  Then look at the Iraqi security forces that we are setting up to take our place.  A strong 90% of these men are there simply because it is a job within a ruined economy.  They are their for a pay check.  What happens when the money runs out?  They go home.  I’ve seen it.  Then who fights the insurgents?  If it’s not us, it’s no one.  Keep in mind that while we are training these men to be security forces, we are not instilling in them any unique Iraqi ideology that will prevail once we are gone.  Keep in mind also there is not a significant taxation structure in this country.  The money to pay them comes from two places: government controlled areas (oil, etc.) and, that’s right, the USA, and right now, we are the lion’s share.

So how do we address this issue.  Currently, we go door to door, like you would a political grass-roots campaign in the United States, trying to win the hearts and minds.  This is not how these people have ever worked.  Iraqis are told what to think by their tribes, by their families; that’s how they want it.  Why then are we going from door to door, trying to get these men who do not hold sway on anything to take an active role within a community that is clearly run by someone else?  It is not their way.  We may be able to change their government, but we cannot sidestep generations upon generations of culture.  These men answer to their Sheiks, their Imams, their grand fathers.  The example I used would be if I went from Private to Private with my message trying to change the mind of their Commanding Officer.  Ass backwards, you see?

Now, you may think that I have gone a bit off track, but I’m going to reign us back in.  To be sure, some of the leaders of this insurgency are these very tribal leaders, sheiks, both past and present, whom we ignore or pay half homage too or worst of all, talk to like they are complete sub-servants to the US.  We have received intelligence that have subsequently been reported in the European media that the leaders of the insurgency have created a shadow government, complete with seven ministers and a head of state.  Going back to what I said about the US talking to and trying to work out political issues with the wrong people, it happens at all levels of our government and military as well.  Our General Officers and elected politicians are speaking to members of a created Iraqi government and that is all.  These are not, in all cases, the traditional leaders that the Iraqi people understand.  They are the ones that we put there for them to vote upon, and Iraqis feel this.  Why should they back a Government who has no real reason to retain its position within a society that at its lowest level does not respect the manner in which they came to their station?  Another way; once we leave, what keeps this Government from collapse?  These leaders are not real leaders, not leaders whom this society says should be overall in control - even those “elected” men know this.  Even so, this is the Iraqi National Government as it stands, and we must work with it, for better or for worse.  However, there is also a very real, very organized other government, another side to the coin here.  It is with these men that we should be in discussion with, at the very least correspondence.  A truce should be worked, as with all wars between two recognized bodies.  However, we do not.  We seek a fractionalization and destruction, similar to that that the Confederacy within our own Civil War sought. And why is that?

Because we have labeled them “Terrorists”.  First, this is dishonorable to them as combatants, I feel.  They are “Rebels”, and while they are savage and ruthless to us, they must be respected as warriors.  Let us not forget the savagery that we fought the British occupiers in our time.  The majority of their aims are for Iraq, not the United States… although I do recognize the importance of the Jihad that some would seemingly carry past this conflict.  The only thing that the majority of these men in Iraq have in common with the Terrorists that brought down the Towers (at this point) is a religion. 

I understand the President’s stance to not grant safe haven to would-be terror cells, but we will not win this war unless we begin to engage in a dialogue with our enemy, and our enemy is known.  He is clearly outlined.  We know their faces, but not where to find them.  We spend all our time attempting to reason with, negotiate, and create diplomacy with these men whom we have put in power, but we do not seek to show them how to work with all levels of their society as we do with ours.  If we are not going to run this State with force ourselves, then I say let’s give everyone in Iraq a chance to speak.  After all, it is a democracy.  The only thing these people seem united upon is that they aren’t going to back the US Horse to win this fight.  Perhaps the best place for al-Zarqawi is a pigeon hole in the Iraqi government as it stands… and maybe not?  If he were in complete visibility to the public it would be much harder for him to do under-the-table deals that may not be the will of the people… isn’t that right, President Bush?

Finally, Lawrence of Arabia wrote, “Do not try to do to much with your own hands… (then published later) Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly.  It is there war, and you are to help them, not win it for them.  Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps you think it is.  It may take them longer and it may not be as good as you think, but if it is theirs, it will be better.”  This was written around World War I, and it couldn’t be more true today.  Whether it’s rebuilding a schooling, fighting a civil war or coming to a less-than-Geneva understanding with rebels within their own boarders; these Iraqis must do if for themselves, and like parents we must step away, and hope for the best.

At one point our Jordanian Officer, a Major, who is usually very quiet, speaks up.  “The only way that you are going to control Iraqis,” he says, “is with Saddam.”  He goes on to say that they are not united, never have been.  They are not like Jordanians or Syrians or Iranians, he says, they are fractionalized; tribes still.  He states, they will not get along as a country without enforcement.  That was insightful, I thought.

Note:  I know that I have left out quite a bit from this morning’s tête-à-tête, which, I think, was a bit more pointed of a conversation.  Sometimes things get lost just a few hours down the road.  Please comment at length, and I will respond for clarities purpose.  Perhaps your input will spawn another entry…

G.Snake’s Picks

Okay, I know that I said in the previous post that I wasn’t going to get into my picks, but upon further review (and three days of not doing a damn thing but discussing The Tournament in an unproductive and more-or-less unsupervised enviroment) I think that sharing them with you at this point would be best for two reasons.  First, you need to see when I pick all the winners that I should have gotten that job with ESPN four years ago (Dan Patrick did not recognize my potential), and second, you all might need the help with your own brackets from a resident expert.  So here goes.

In Atlanta: my pick for this region is Texas, and I will preface this by saying that I hate The Longhorns.  Not so much as a team, but rather because they are like some strange collegiate version of the NY Yankees – like some evil empire that encompasses several NCAA sporting outfits.  Also their fans are among the most obnoxious in all of collegiate sports (Texans obnoxious?  …that’s so weird…), second only to the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  By the way, what is with the ‘hook’em horns’ gang sign?  Lame.  And I hate that shade of orange.  Regardless, they are my pick, and here’s why:  Duke is a one-man show.  Yes, a few others on the squad have made a step-up to play on a ‘contribution’-level but only lately, and really, if you can stop Redick, it’s game over for the Blue Devils.  Teams have to have known this for sometime now, which means they have been practicing for it.  Also, JJ Redick looks like Freddy Prince Jr. in a Duke uniform massing fires from the three point line.  Sorry, call me a lowball hold-over from my public school days, but I just want to see him get his preppy ass kicked.  I have Duke out before they get to the Elite Eight… to Syracuse. 

Syracuse is going to The Dance with Uncle Mo (Momentum!), and they are starting off the show with Texas A&M who was extremely inconsistent this season.  If the Orangemen draw blood in the first round with any sort of excessive point spread, they are going to be dangerous.  Dangerous like John Shaft on Viagra.  Yes, LSU (who has to beat a difficult Iona team) in the second round is not going to be a walk in the clouds, but like I said, Orange is just going to get more and more tough (that’s ‘Tuff’ with two ‘F’s, boys).  Then to meet up with Duke in the Sweet Sixteen, McNamara vs. Redick – advantage is to the Orangemen.  After their assistant coach’s comments earlier in the season (“…under rated…”), McNamara and the boys have something to say, not to us, but to their school.  Shit’s going to get personal, and whomever they play is going to just get in the way of making a point back on the Syracuse campus, regardless of seeding.  

However, I have Syracuse peaking there though, they’ll get a pop-up saying “message delivered”.  I have them falling to Texas in the Eight.  Sure Texas has to deal with Iowa, NC State, possibly a West Virginia upset, but I got Texas in the Final Four without having to face Duke.

Now, the Oakland bracket is wide open.  Almost no one in my office pool (technically, there is no gambling in the military, so this is totally, um, well, it’s gambling) has the number 1 seed, Memphis, going all the way.  Bucknell is a common pick for a double upset, so is Pittsburg bulling their way in.  Most likely, of course, is The UCLA Bruins coming right up from the low post and finding themselves in the Final Four.  Those who make that pick that also tend to pick them winning it all too, but I won’t go that far because I don’t smoke UCLA pole.  I got Kansas, the 4 seed, knocking off both Memphis and UCLA to land in the Final Four.  I also have an upset with Alabama in the first round, but that madness stops there.  Further, I’m not buying into The Aztecs over-running Indiana, nor the previously mentioned Bucknell upset.  I have the ‘Zags losing to The Bruins before this is done, but overall it will be a highly under-rated Kansas Jayhawks facing but eventually losing to The Longhorns.

Yeah, I have Xavier going out in the first round.  Yes, I am a realist.  Bite me.

Washington DC is easily the weakest region for their 1 seed.  I got UConn rumbling all the way to the Final Four with about the same resistance Patton would receive in a game of Pocket Tanks.  The University of Kentucky, I think, are going to slip past UAB, but Tubby’s Wildcats have a better chance of ordering a Big Mac at BurgerKing than overcoming The Huskies.  Illinois - okay, I understand you might be playing for your coach at this point, but that’s not going to be enough to edge the 1 seed here either.  Finally, I don’t care if it’s North Carolina (my pick), Michigan State, or Tennessee – no one here can beat UConn. 

But Boston College can.  That’s my pick in Minneapolis, another bracket that is wide open, but in this case it’s the most completive bracket, not the most ridiculous.  Villanova is an deep team, and with Allan Ray back on the court from his eye injury (which I wasn’t banking on… grrrrr), they are going to be the biggest game that BC is going to face, but it’s winnable.  With Nova going in over a battle-worn Arizona Wildcats (who will trump Wisconsin in a barnburner), and with BC zipping an underrated Pacific and blowing out a marginally tough, but historically stagnant Nevada, it will be The Eagles over The Wildcats in probably the biggest game of the Tournament.  But lets not forget about the bottom of the barrel.

There is the Oklahoma vs. Wisconsin-Milwaukee match-up that could go either way (I’m going with Oklahoma’s experience), there is then the number 3 seed Florida facing the winner of that; still a toss-up game to get to the Sweet Sixteen, even though I have Florida pushing in too.  Ohio State is shaky with a new coach and some sneaky wins, still you can’t deny them the fact they won the Big 10.  The Hoyas of Georgetown  are extremely under-rated as a 7 seed, and they are going to make a quick run at The Buckeyes, unhorsing the 2 seed.  So I think you’ll see a Florida v. Boston College match-up in the Elite Eight with BC, again, pulling ahead in a tough game to get to the Final Four.  There, against a UConn that is so untested they could have herpes, the clap, and the HIV, I have BC, who has had an incredibly challenging road to the Finals (but a winnable one) being the team that matches up with a veteran squad of massively-sized, wonderfully-talented, athletic, and “coachable” players, beating The Huskies and meeting Texas in the Finals.

And in the Final:  I got Boston College by 3.  Texas, like UConn, will get to the Finals relatively unscarred and about as well proven as the OJ Simpson case.  The Eagles of Boston College at that point will be hard as nails with something to prove themselves, and they are the veterans to prove it.  Let the music play, it’s time for the Dance.

GO MUSKETEERS…   whatever…

Just some thoughts on being the product of a High School and University that didn’t have football programs

March.  By all accounts one of the more lame months.  Sure you have Saint Patrick’s Day but other than that what do you have?  A barometer that flip-flops more than any bi-patrician politician in Washington that I know of?  A car that constantly needs to be washed due to the Heavens getting rid of all the shit that didn’t have an up-to-date clearance?  A wardrobe full of whites that you just can’t wear until after Labor Day?  True, there is this and no large scale commercial / greeting card holiday to hold the public interest, but there is something.  March Madness. 

What better way to fill in the blanks prescribed by the American consumer industry’s obvious oversite than by a major sporting event organized around unpaid nineteen through twenty-four year olds.  How can anyone possibly deny the value of that sort of pure profit event?  Every year at this time there are new champions, new venues, new highlight reels, new stories of challenge and adversity, undoubtedly new upsets and Cinderellas; Heck, the only thing that is old are the school rivalries and (if your lucky enough) your head coaches.

I won’t bore you with my picks for the brackets… although, if I do well, I’ll be sure and let the general public know what a smart SOB I am.  I will, however, take just a minute to talk about my team, my school, my boys in blue – The Xavier University Musketeers.  The X-Men have really come from behind already, and I’m not just talking about this season, I’m talking about over the last few years.  Since Head Coach Skip Prosser defected to Wake Forest back when I was going to XU, the Muskies have since had Tad Matta step-up from the assistant ranks to run the X-Men into the Elite Eight back in 2004 for the first time.  The following year, Tad also changed his colors, and went a few miles upstate to be the Head Coach of the Ohio State Buck-Eyes who are looking at a No. 2 seed for their conference now (tip of the hat, Mr. Matta).  With that much turbulence at the upper levels, I assume that the recruiting program at X has to be hurt, and I believe that it has.  The players on the court for Xaiver are not the same par as the Romain Sotos, David Wests, Kevin Freys, or Lionel Chambers of late.  Also the new coach, Sean Miller (????), has taken several big hits this season, most notably when big man starter and lead scorer, Brian Thornton, went down with a broken ankle against LaSalle in early February.  Miller has managed to completely reformat his game from an inside run-and-gun to an outside perimeter game.  Now the Musketeers have rallied as the ten of ten seed in the A-10 conference to win a bid to NCAA Tournament by winning four games in four days to become the only team in history to come from that far back and still win the Tournament… and oh by the way, the last time they did that was 2004.  

Now I’m a realist.  I don’t think the X-Men are going to go much further than the first round.  (I’ll shit in my own hands if they make it to the second round, and if they make the sweet sixteen I’ll go to work with a giant ‘X’ painted in blue on my chest)  But as the Axe so eloquently put it, when you’re a freshman it’s not how long you stayed at the prom before you got drunk and fucked, it’s that you got to go in the first place.  Well said.

I’m off my soap box. 

But really, March Madness is the only sporting championship tournament and finals worth watching as far as my money is worth.  Nothing is as pure, as athletic, as emotional, as fast paced, and as predictably unpredictable.  The players come to play, not for money, but for the school (which is paying for tuition… and sometimes more… so I guess maybe they are getting paid, but not millions)  You can make the argument that they are fighting for a spot, readying themselves for the draft to the NBA, but that is hardly fair.  The majority of those players are going to work executive jobs just like you or I… that is, if you went to college like I did.  An NCAA Div I football player has a better chance of making it into the NFL than a Div I basketball player has of making it into the NBA.  (no, I have nothing to back that up)  Yet, these boys go out and throw-down harder and more often than any of those padded-up once-a-week phonies.  Also, when was the last time you saw a fat NCAA basketball player?

NBA doesn’t even come close to the intensity of college hoops.  The same teams play the same teams with the same players, year after year.  Money squabbles, teammate issues, coach/player relationship problems – this is fallout that you just do not see at the NCAA level, which in my mind, makes it pure.  You play or you don’t.  Easy.  You get a player that doesn’t want to be there, he leaves.  There is no marquee player for a University that isn’t disposable, because let’s face it, in three or four years, he’s gone anyway. 

As far as tournament play goes, here’s my quick around-the-horn on the others.  World Series?  Boring, unless it’s the Red Soxes… and even then…  still, a bit boring.  The Superbowl.  Okay, minute for minute, maybe you have an argument here, but one would have to take into account the whole NFL play-offs to equal the NCAA Tournament.  Now, if you do that then you have to take into account the time-line inherent with it, because the NFL takes a full month and change to play out.  The NCAA Tournament takes under two weeks.  Advantage, The Dance.  And that’s another thing, how cool is it that the Tournament has a nick-name?  Does any other sporting event have that?  No.

Okay, where did I leave off… oh yeah, NBA Finals.  Whatever, next.  Stanley Cup Finals?  I’m sorry, what?  PGA Golf Championship.  You have to be kidding, right?  Bowl Games?  Hmmmm… tricky, but I give the edge to NCAA basketball over football.  Bowl games are subjective to the AP Poll (and with people like John Madden being held in esteem by the football community, I would love to see the knuckle draggers that pick the winners in this arena) and further they are one-shot stops.  No play-off upsets, no brackets, no build up.  It’s like drunk sex at 3 am on a Sunday Morning – the foreplay is supposedly just getting picked up, it’s over before you know it, and you’ve forgotten about it by the next morning.  

For a fan, nothing is as challenging to follow as NCAA basketball teams, because players, coaches, and conferences change so rapidly both year to year but also week to week.  The facts and histories are so wide spread that it truly is an investment of time and resources to stay smart on these teams.  Further, nothing makes a fan more loyal and less likely to be a fair weather friend than being able to say with a bachelors degree to back it up, “That’s my team”.  Really, is there any other sporting event as worthy of your attention?

GO MUSKETEERS!!!

All hail the new low!

I know, I know, it’s been a while since last my dedicated fan base has heard from me, but I come to all of you to give you an update on what’s rolling in the downcast world of the G. Snake and to insist to you that I am responsible for none of it…  Well, no more than usual.  Rather, I have become the unwilling victim of a boss who has the mental capacity and leadership traits found in a collective group of Phish groupies on the last leg of a US Tour.  Moron status of a Cone-Head degree.  Weapons Grade Stupidity.  And I for one can’t handle to much more of this. 

This man is without a doubt the worst Officer that I have ever seen in my entire career.  I say this without reservation; LT Logli lost his crown due to the fact that he is only an LT and thereof has a very minimal damage radius.  MAJ Dud-Round, on the other hand, is a bio-chemical reaction of redneck simplicity, autistic physical coordination, and a personality that can only be described as a high value target on playground of life.  This man is unfit for any sort of troop leadership; as a matter of fact, anyone in the recruiting and retention fields for the Army should start write in campaign for this man to be sent to the firing squad.  But hey, I’d be happy if he just went away.  To Greenland.  Forever.

So that’s were I’ve been.  I’ve been at the mercy of the retarded behavior of the Army’s promotion system.  I’ve been working late for no reason at all.  I stare at the wall for (literally) hours upon hours a day, not because I am a slacker, but because US Army Major refuses to task me and my peers with an accurate work load… that is, until he gets his ass chewed for not doing just that or whatever he should be doing, at which time ‘we’ kick in and play catch-up, which inevitably means that we stay later doing what we could have been doing all day while he drones out in the corner reading God-knows-what on his Mircosoft Outlook.  The worst part is, it’s all shit that does not require a Captain to do.  These office-space tasks can be preformed by monkeys, and yet the powers that be (the aforementioned jack-ass and his big-top entourage) have so allocated their resources.  I honestly can’t understand how my time can be wasted in the same breath that the Army hurts for Officers and man-power.  Wait, yes I can.  It woud be a terrible thing if the big baba-yaga asked upon receit of the shit that we are turning out due to lack of guidance, leadership, and tools, “how long did you all work on this?”, and you didn’t have a very good answer. 

I said the thought that was on nearly everyone’s mind today - we are in a course that should be teaching us, nay, preparing us to take command and further our leadership.  My response to the fucking bag of dicks that these last two and a half months is, “… will someone hurry up and send me back to Iraq?”  And I mean it.

In other news, I have had two very good conversations in the last two weeks (and quite a few bad ones too…  time locked in a room with the same strangers tends to work like that) within my horrid sequestered state with a fellow classmate who will be referred to as Roadblock.  One such conversation was on the definition of success and how one quantifies it.  I do not have a completely refined answer (yet),  but simply bringing up the topic reminded me that I have drifted very far from my start point just a few short years ago at XU.  Further, it made me recognize that I have sacrificed parts of myself that I won’t get back.  This is something that I swore at Day One of the Army that I would never do.  My first admission of a failure grandios.  The second conversation consisted of my perceived alcoholism.

This struck me as odd.  True, I do drink more than the average bear, but then again so what?  One can always get caught in the catch-22 of saying that they are not an alcoholic only to be met with the response that they are in denial.  But at a careful review of my last two and a half months, I realized that I have not gone more than three days without a drink.  While I am not troubled about this in the least (actually, I am kind of happy/proud with it), what does bother me is the branches that lead from my response: “I could stop cold-turkey without side-effects if I had to go to the field, get deployed, or do something that took the focus of my entire day.”

That’s the bullshit, right there.  For the last two or three months I haven’t had any sort of hourly battle focus let alone a days worth, but yet I wake at 0430 hrs and am run straight-out until 1700 hrs for no perceivable reason or end.  This is my life as I know it.  Of course I am drinking; after a near twelve hour day of having my brain pickled in a non-air conditioned room (Ft. Sill doesn’t turn the AC on until 1 April), I literally need a chemical boost to get back up to where I am functioning on my normal social level.  I realized that I don’t like call friends or see people who know how I normally am after work for at least two hours because I look and sound like I am on depressants or Lunista.  I need to go home, jerk-off, take a long nap, or get a drink before I engage in any social interaction.  To note: if this was what I thought to be a short term thing, I would probably just jerk-off more, but as I don’t see a clear end in sight, I would rather risk alcoholism than being addicted to web-porn… alcoholism is cheaper.

I am going to learn from this time, however.  I never again want to live in hope that time will go by faster, by the week, by the month.  Tomorrow, I will go back to that room and stare once more into the wall, and occasional steal away to delve into my book for a few chapters of needlessness while the rest of the world rolls along out in what is becoming, I guess, a beatutiful Oklahoma spring.  And if someone happens to come by tomorrow and say that I need to pack to be back in Ar-Ramadi in the next 24 hours, you can bet your ass that I would be ready; that I would leap up with a smile and gladly rush home to collect my things for a trip back into Hell… because Purgatory sucks.